This invention relates to a demonstration layout planner adapted for use in demonstrating and facilitating the layouts of equipment, articles of furniture and the like, in a room of definite dimensions, so that a lay person can readily visualize the precise arrangement and location that such articles will occupy when installed or set in place in such a room. The modernization of kitchens and other rooms, for example, playrooms, in a home, with standard equipment and articles of furniture is at the present time proceeding at an accelerated rate. Kitchen equipment and articles of furniture for such purposes are now being manufactured in units of various sizes and packaged for direct shipment to the purchaser who, independently of, or with the aid of a salesperson, chooses and orders the desired equipment.
In a home setting, as well as in a commercial setting, it is difficult to visualize how the pieces of furniture or equipment will appear in a given room. The esthetic appearance of one furniture layout as compared with another is hard to visualize. This difficulty makes the decoration and arrangement of furniture within the home or commercial setting difficult and time consuming. In a commercial setting, the functional relationship of furniture and office equipment are difficult to determine without a layout of these pieces.
In the home, visualization of a furniture layout may be obtained by laborious rearrangement of the present furniture. A greater problem is presented when new pieces of furniture have to be added to an already decorated room. Alternatively, a draftsman may draw a proposed layout sketch illustrating either a plan or a perspective view of the arrangement of pieces. However, it is difficult to readily rearrange the drawn pieces without making a completely new sketch. As a result, a large number of hours may be spent in providing a number of sketches until a modular layout that is acceptable from a functional or aesthetic point of view is realized.
A more practical solution is the use of modules that may be readily rearranged upon a layout board. If the placement of a furniture module is not aesthetically appealing or functional, it may be readily moved to other locations until the right placement is found for the piece of furniture or equipment. To be effective, these modules must be active and realistic so that the final layout may simulate in a manner as closely as possible, the actual appearance of the room.
Schwieger U.S. Pat. No. 2,941,314, discloses a display case having two sections in which are fixedly disposed plates. A grid-like sheet is disposed over each plate and a set of furniture modules may be arranged upon the plates in the desired room arrangement. In particular, the plates may be made of a ferrous metal. Each of the furniture modules includes a permanent magnet whereby the module may be attached to the plate. Each section of the display case is connected to the other by a hinge, whereby the sections may be closed on each other and secured by a catch. Since each plate is fixedly secured to each section, the hinges are designed so that they may be separated to permit the removal of one section along with the plan and models so that it can be easily carried to and compared with different locations of the room to be arranged. The sections when closed and locked by the catch form a carrying case While these sections are portable and permit the visualization of possible layouts of a room, the furniture modules are relatively expensive to produce and are of a fixed size thereby preventing a module from representing pieces of furniture of varying sizes.
D'Agrosa U.S. Pat. No. 3,659,353 discloses a method of preparing a modular layout, whereby a sheet made of a magnetically attractive material is provided for receiving and supporting magnetic permeable material Sets of lines are disposed on the sheet to define the grid, whereby a plurality of modules resembling furniture may be arranged on the grid. However, the modules for representing furniture are relatively expensive and are of a fixed size thereby preventing them from representing articles of furniture of varying sizes.
It is therefore the object of the invention to provide adjustable layouts for aiding in the visualization of arrangements of objects in a space wherein the layouts may be used to represent objects of varying size.